Christians Taste Good

Hosea 10:12

(NIV) Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, 
until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

(NKJV) Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

I have always heard that Christians smell good, that you can tell when you’re in the presence of another Christian. In my early years, I was comforted by that and met many people that “smelled” like good Christians. It wasn’t always in church, of course.

As the years went by I realized this wasn’t one hundred percent accurate. I met people that seemed like good Christian people, the kind who sincerely cared about you and your welfare. Then I learned things about them or saw them consistently committing actions that were entirely counter to Biblical Christian principles (remember the old song you sang when you were little: They’ll know they are Christians by their love?).

Some preachers preach that my discernment just wasn’t good enough, that my impressions were colored by my own feelings, and if I were more in touch with God I’d not have the problem of knowing true Christians from false.

I hang my head in shame because that just might be true.

A few weeks ago, though, I heard a different take on it, backed by the verse from Hosea above. Christians Taste good, said Pastor.

What? I sat up to hear the rest of that story.

Now, technically Hosea is Old Testament, so it isn’t Christianity that is being preached, but Godliness. Follow the logic here for a second. In the OT we are being taught to be godly, to be like God Himself. Since God is Jesus, and Jesus is God and Jesus is Christ and Christians are Christ-like, then Christians are God-like and the OT call to godliness certainly applies.

Sow righteousness. A command. Go forth and do good (not well – good; I know what I’m writing). Got it.

You’ll reap FRUIT, the fruit of unfailing love. How do we know we are Christians? Because when life gets hard and tough times squeeze you, the real person you are comes out, and if you’re a good person that real you will manifest love. If you’re Christian, this is what people see. Love. The FRUIT of love.

And fruit is sweet, and you’re full of love, full of the fruit of love, so if I bite you, you’ll be sweet.

There’s more to the verse, of course.

Break up your unplowed ground, which is ground you haven’t yet worked.

It is time to seek the Lord. What time is it? Seek the Lord Time! That’s always a good answer.

We sow and seek and God will come and shower HIS righteousness on us, which is much, much better than our own righteousness.

So we sow and seek and then we get to take a SHOWER!

Squeaky clean, and full of the fruit of unfailing love. Sweet and clean!

Sadly, I don’t think I’m allowed to go around biting people to see how sweet they are, so I think I will have my troubles in this life knowing who is sincere and who isn’t.

Until the bad times come, then I see what squeezes out of them.

Just like, I suppose, they see what squeezes out of me.

Fruit of the Spirit, but that's a different verse

This wasn’t my planned post, but it is in my list of things to write about. It’s a tough headache day, and Darling had a biopsy today and feels really badly. Call this one a filler post, and I’ll be more robust in a few days.

In the meantime, God bless you all, and may you be filled with jelly.